Who are the better drivers: men or women? It's an ongoing debate that rages on every time the results of a new research project come in, which is often these days.
The latest one, conducted by road safety charity Brake and insurance company Direct Line in the UK, shows that men are much more likely to take deadly risks on the road.
The survey reveals that almost one in four men (24 percent) admitted to overtaking when they couldn't be certain that nothing was coming, in the last year, while only one in six women (18 percent) admitted to this same misdemeanour.
Even scarier is that 20 percent of men (and 9 percent of women) said that they'd been involved in an “overtaking near-miss” in the past year, and that 54 percent said they'd witnessed such an incident by another driver in that time period.
Unsurprisingly, the men also win the speeding race, with 44 percent saying they've broken the 96km/h speed limit on a rural road, compared to 24 percent of women, while men are twice as likely to do this at least once a month.
Brake's senior campaigns officer said: “Some people kid themselves they can get away with excessive speeds and dangerous manoeuvres, because they know the road. Yet driving on rural roads is highly unpredictable, and the consequences of risk-taking often horrendous.”
Direct line spokesperson Simon Henrick added: “Drivers should remember that patience is a virtue when it comes to deciding to overtake another vehicle, as it could be a life saver.”
This advice is all the more relevant in South Africa, where our road carnage rate is up there with the worst in the world and it takes just one journey onto a rural road to see why.
How many times have you seen a brainless overtaking manoeuvre in the last year? We've lost count actually…